Spelling

place the possessive apostrophe accurately in words with regular plurals [for
example, girls’, boys’] and in words with irregular plurals [for example, children’s]

use the first 2 or 3 letters of a word to check its spelling in a dictionary

write from memory simple sentences, dictated by the teacher, that include words and punctuation taught so far.

Handwriting and Presentation

Our children will be taught to:

use the diagonal and horizontal strokes that are needed to join letters and understand which letters, when adjacent to one another, are best left unjoined

increase the legibility, consistency and quality of their handwriting [for example, by
ensuring that the downstrokes of letters are parallel and equidistant; that lines of
writing are spaced sufficiently so that the ascenders and descenders of letters do not
touch].

Composition

Our children will be taught to:

Plan their writing by:

discussing writing similar to that which they are planning to write in order to understand and learn from its structure, vocabulary and grammar

discussing and recording ideas

Draft and write by:

composing and rehearsing sentences orally (including dialogue), progressively building a varied and rich vocabulary and an increasing range of sentence structures (See English Appendix 2)